He tossed the rag on a barrel full of leaves and paper refuse that had been swept up on the park paths. Something about the cloth attracted the attention of Jerry, who picked it up. No sooner had he felt of it than he uttered an exclamation.
“Fellows!” he cried, “this isn’t an ordinary rag. It’s a piece of canvas such as airship planes are made of!”
“Are you sure?” demanded Bob.
“Certainly,” replied Jerry. “See, it’s just the kind we use—in fact nearly all planes are made from this kind, which is woven especially for the purpose.”
“An airship; eh?” mused the foreman of the park laborers. “Maybe it dropped from some of the machines that were flying out at Colton.”
“It didn’t drop, it was torn off,” declared Jerry, looking at the ragged edges. “Some airship went too close to the statue, and a wing tip, or a rudder hit the torch. It was risky flying all right.”
“Then it must have been done at night,” declared the foreman, “for some of the men are on duty in this park all day, and they’d have seen it if anything like that happened.”
“Perhaps it was a night flight,” assented Jerry, as he looked at Bob and Ned. The same thought was in the minds of all of them—the aeroplane of the bank robbers!
“What’s that other thing you found in the torch?” asked Ned of the man who had climbed the ladder.